America's Medicine Cabinet Is a National Security Issue

Can America provide the medicine its people need when they need it most? Right now, the answer is not as secure as it should be.

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists tracks shortages affecting antibiotics, cancer treatments, anesthetics, and injectable drugs. For many Americans, this is no longer hypothetical. Their pharmacist simply cannot fill prescriptions they need.

For decades, the United States has benefited from a global pharmaceutical industry that delivers affordable generic medicines. But that affordability has come with a hidden cost: supply chains that stretch around the world. A drug that appears to be an American product often depends on active pharmaceutical ingredients manufactured overseas. When production stalls in another country, American patients feel the effects. The dependence becomes a strategic vulnerability when those supply chains run through China. 

China plays a central role in producing pharmaceutical ingredients used around the world, including those needed for common antibiotics and other essential medicines. The Chinese Communist Party has shown a willingness to use economic leverage and control over critical supply chains to advance its interests. Pharmaceutical supply chains would not be exempt from that pressure. If war, pandemic, or deliberate disruption interrupted global trade, dependence on a foreign adversary could very well leave American patients and hospitals without essential medicines.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated what happens when critical supply chains break down, and the lesson extends beyond masks and medical equipment. Hospitals cannot wait for the next overseas shipment when they need antibiotics or anesthetics. Doctors cannot manufacture these products themselves, and patients cannot put their health on hold while supply chains are rebuilt.

National security isn’t only about weapons and ammunition. It also means having the industrial capacity, infrastructure, food, and medicine necessary to keep Americans safe when the world becomes unstable.

The answer is not to eliminate international pharmaceutical supply chains overnight. We need to pursue resilience over dependence; encourage domestic production of critical medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients, diversify supply chains through trusted allies, and remove unnecessary barriers that make it harder for American manufacturers to compete. 

Our government does not need to run the pharmaceutical industry but it needs to recognize when excessive foreign dependence has created a strategic vulnerability and the create conditions where American businesses can invest and manufacture at home.

Can America provide the medicines its people need when they need them most?  America has the workers, scientists, and manufacturers to build a stronger domestic supply chain. We should not wait for the next pandemic, war, or geopolitical crisis to discover that our medicine cabinet depends on a foreign power. A healthy America must be a self-reliant America.